


Behind the Scenes

by MsBluebell



Series: In The Theater [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Backstory, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Depression, From OOC to Canon Character Development, Gen, Headcanon, Headcanons because canon let me down, Medication, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Scars, The Hanoi Project, The Lost Incident (Yu-Gi-Oh), The Lost Incident Kids deserved to be explored more, Therapy, Trans Fujiki Yuusaku, Trans Male Character, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, With very little of the Canon part because it's Pre-Canon, Yusaku has Issues, accidental misgendering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBluebell/pseuds/MsBluebell
Summary: Yusaku isn't an orphan, technically. He has parents, they just don't want him. He's not sure if that counts as being an orphan. It doesn't matter though, because he's happy being raised by his grandfather.(Or, Yusaku before and after the Lost Incident, his terrible mother, and no satisfying conclusions to how he ended up where he is in canon.)
Relationships: Fujiki Yuusaku & Revolver | Kougami Ryouken, Fujiki Yuusaku & Roboppy
Series: In The Theater [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782010
Comments: 13
Kudos: 38





	Behind the Scenes

Five years and ten months is how long it takes for Yusaku to realize that he’s an orphan. Sort of. Maybe. He’s not entirely sure, but it’s the first time that he has the realization that it might be possible.

Pépère, grandfather, always says orphans grow up too fast, but Yusaku couldn’t tell the difference one way or another, because he’s not technically an orphan. 

Kinda.

He is a little bit.

Is someone an orphan if their mom and dad don't want them? He thinks, maybe, but he’s not sure. And he’s not brave enough to ask his grandfather about it. And it’s only half because he’s scared that grandpa will get upset if he asks. 

He loves his pépère, he doesn’t want to see grandpa cry. Now with how hard grandpa works to make him happy. He works a lot, old and withered hands always working, blowing glass and spinning it from fire to pretty colored things in his store. 

Pépère looks like other grandfathers, he thinks, just with a little extra. He’s got a few wrinkles, kind grey eyes, and long blue hair that’s slowly turning silvery all wrapped in a tie down his back. And he wears dangly earrings made of glass. And his hands have bits that are hardened from work. There’s burn scars all over pépère’s forearms, but they were never as ugly as Yusaku maybe should have found them, because grandpa can never be anything but the best in his eyes. Better than other grandfathers. Even if he was a bit younger than the other kids’ grandpas, and he doesn’t know how to speak the right words for where they live, and there was no grandma to go with him. Yusaku still loves him more than anything in this whole wide world.

And they live in a small house that’s also his grandfather’s glass shop in the front, a really old one with peeling wallpaper and chipping paint. There are stains on the kitchen counter, and the furniture all squeaks, and it’s all a lot older than Yusaku because they don’t have a lot of money. But he’s happy, and he never goes without, not really. He’s got lots of food, and toys, and a TV and an old computer to do school stuff on. He’s got everything he needs.

So Yusaku is fine with the fact he’s never actually met his mom and dad, even though he knows his mom is alive and sends pépère money every couple of weeks. He just wishes she let him have the same last name as pépère , even if it was a weird name for where they lived. But when he asks about why his name is different from his grandfather’s he just gets a pat on the head and a promise that it’s probably just his father’s name. Maybe. Pépère isn’t really all that sure. It wasn’t his grand-mère’s maiden name, even though she was Japanese. So it was probably Yusaku’s father’s name. But neither of them have ever actually met Yusaku’s father, and hadn’t even known mom had a baby until she moved him here from France.

It’s a little strange, but Yusaku doesn’t care, because even if pépère can’t speak all that good to everyone else he can, because he learned how in school and talking to adults for his grandfather. And pépère is learning, slowly, he speaks well enough to go to teacher meetings and sell stuff in the store, so they’re fine. Yusaku probably doesn’t have a lot of friends because they keep getting his name wrong, and he sometimes mixes up his words with French, but he’s happy.

Besides, he loves sitting in the shop with his pépère! Watching pépère make glass things is the prettiest sight in the whole world. And maybe he’s not allowed to get close, but he still likes to watch from his chair, watching colorful liquid fires become shapes of flowers and animals while pépère sings loud lullabies might be the best thing ever.

At least as good as duel monsters.

So, yeah, Yusaku doesn’t need his mom. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t want him, and it doesn’t matter if no one can tell him who his father is, or why mom liked him, or if Yusaku gets his green eyes from him. Because he’s told mom’s eyes are blue, and he gets the blue in his hair from her. Pépère isn’t sure where the pink comes from, because his grand-mère had green hair, and no pink in her family as far as he knew. So maybe Yusaku’s dad has pink hair and green eyes, maybe. 

Maybe he thinks about his parents a lot, but that’s normal. He just wants to know more about them, why they had him, what they’re doing, why they didn’t want him.

“Eet ees my fault.” Pépère tells him whenever he asks, “I raised hair sahmewhaht poor, ahnd now she wahnts to be reech.”

He was not surprised pépère wasn’t rich enough for his mama. His whole life he’s been blowing and selling glass, and grand-mère sold flowers to couples touring France. So they probably didn’t make a whole lot of money. Not enough for mama, not if she moves her papa all the way here just so Yusaku has someone to watch him.

“So mama is rich?” He’d ask, hugging his favorite stuffed sea lion, Dr. Flips because he is a doctor whose hugs can make anything feel better, to his chest. His feet are dangling from the stool, watching pépère make a dragon out of glass and fire. 

“Very reech.” His grandfather promises, had bobbing while he pinches the liquid fire with pinchers to make the shapes right. “I hahd your mahthair when I wahs only eighteen. she hahd ze grahce to wait ahnd hahve you unteel nineteen.”

Eighteen seems pretty old to the five-and-three-fourths-year old Yusaku, but pépère makes it seem really young when he talks like that. Because apparently waiting from eighteen to nineteen to have a baby makes all the difference in the world when it comes to making money. “If she’s rich, how come we don’t live with her?”

“Because being reech mahkes hair very busy.” Pépère promises, pulling away from the fire and glass, looking over Yusaku with those kind, grey, eyes. “Eet's naht zat she doesn't wahnt to raise you, she's just busy.”

Too busy to do more than send him a birthday card with the wrong name on it. Yusaku knows pépère always scrambles to copy the card onto another, putting on the right name. But pépère is French, and he’s used to writing French, and even if he has learned to speak Japanese he’s never mastered writing. Mom’s letters are too crisp and clean, like a robot, and pépère’s writing is messy and bad. And even if it wasn’t, that doesn’t change the fact that mom, or her lady she gets to do things for her, sends dresses for his holidays. Dresses and little bracelets and ribbons and other things girls would like. Because mom still thinks his name is Yuno.

It doesn’t matter, pépère knows his name is Yusaku.

And maybe pépère doesn’t know how to play his favorite games well, losing every game of duel monsters they play, and never knowing how to help Yusaku build his deck. But that’s fine, because eventually Yusaku will figure out how to make friends, and then he can just play with them while pépère blows glass and hums Le Festin real loud.

He doesn’t need a mom or dad.

* * *

Yusaku is six years and an hour old when he decides that he’s going to move with his pépère back to France one day and never think of his mama again. 

He decides at his birthday table, which is him, pépère, the neighbor lady, a couple of older people his pépère made friends with, and his mama’s assistant lady. There’s a cake the neighbor lady made all by herself, and it’s big, and has lots of whipped frosting. And there’s lots of food that he doesn’t think anyone else will eat because pépère never mastered the kinds of food they make here.

But it’s fine, because he never expected anyone to come to his sixth birthday except his grandfather. It’s already a surprise there’s anyone else here. And Yusaku thinks, maybe, pépère must have called his mama and begged her to come to his birthday if the assistant lady is here instead. At least the neighbor lady being here was a nice surprise. She’s older than pépère, and she has a lot of kittens, but she’s nice. And she made the cake. And she even bought him a brightly wrapped present. And pépère’s friends are all nice, setting up games to play with him, and taking tentative turns at duel monsters with him. Some are even pretty good at it, so he gets to finally practice a bit. He already feels like he’s getting better, so maybe he’ll even be good when he finally makes friends. And they’ve piled a nice stack of brightly colored presents wrapped in stringy bows.

It’s the best birthday he thinks he’s ever had, which is a whole lot of birthdays, only six. And he can only remember maybe two of them. But it’s still a lot better than he thought it was going to be, and it’s actually a whole lot of fun. It’s nice to have a bunch of people to play games with, and he really likes his presents. One of pépère’s friends got him a pair of old ice-skates, because that’s where pépère met this friend, and it means they can save money when they go to the ice-house. And he gets a lot of toy trucks, and stuffed animals, and lots of new duel monster cards to play with. One of pépère’s coffee buddies gets him a kit for building his own computer, something he says every kid these days should try. He even gets his first duel disk from the man that owns the toy shop, and it’s an older model, but Yusaku loves it so much that he doesn’t even care.

It doesn’t even feel a little awkward until he opens his gift from mom.

She doesn’t want him, doesn’t even care about him, but she sends expensive gifts. The problem is that those gifts aren’t the kind of things he likes. And he appreciates them, but it’s a little hard to feel good when all she ever sends are fancy dresses. It’s not like he’s against wearing them, he guesses, but he’s having trouble trying to prove he’s Yusaku. So the dress is...nice...but he really would have liked it better if she sent some booster packs or something.

The assistant lady at least looks as awkward as he does, and he wonders if maybe even knew what was in the box, because she’s really red and she says sorry a whole lot. And everything has gone kind of quiet, the kind of quiet that happens when adults suddenly don’t want to talk about things. So he makes his decision that it's probably best to never, ever, think about his mom again while he’s folding the nice dress back into the box. “It’s okay, you didn’t know.”

At least the lady tried. 

So pépère claps his hands and loudly announces that it’s time to eat the cake, and Yusaku forgets all about his mom’s assistant’s present and rushes off to enjoy his treat. 

But even as he’s taking bites of his cake, his mind never quite leaves the idea that maybe he and pépère should go. That if mama doesn’t really want them here, and only keeps them here because of curtsy, maybe they should get as far away as they can. Because Yusaku is pretty sure pépère never wanted to leave France anyway, so maybe if they go he can run away from the fact he’s technically an orphan. And then he can change his last name to Bellefeuille, and he’ll have an easier time making friends because...because…

He doesn’t know, he just doesn’t wanna think about mom anymore.

He wants to watch pépère make glass statues forever. And he wants to see the lavender fields that his grandfather sometimes talks about with shiny eyes, the ones he misses more than anything. And he wants to see big fancy castles. And he wants to explore the abandoned places, like the crypts. And he wants to be where no one knows about Yuno. And he wants to feel normal, because he isn't normal yet here. Not with his mom, and not with his classmates sometimes forgetting his name is Yusaku now.

Yusaku doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he grows up, but it’s gonna be something to help him save up and go to France. He’s sure it can’t be too hard, his mom didn’t even give pépère much warning before he had to move. 

He should do something with computers, he decides, looking at the computer building kit he got for his birthday. If he starts now then someday he’ll be really good at it. Or, or, maybe he can be a glassblower like pépère! He can’t imagine something better he could be! Or maybe he can do both! Then he can have lots and lots of money and buy a house for them!

Or maybe he could become a professional celebrity duelist!

Yes, that one seemed best. Then he could be famous and tell everyone how great his pépère’s glassblowing is, and then they’d both be rich because everyone would one a tiny glass elephant. Or dragon. Or sea lions. Or one of the dozens of flowers pépère liked to make to remember grand-mère; roses and lavender and forget-me-nots and sunflowers and wisteria. 

Yeah, that sounds good. He’ll be a famous duelist and make sure everyone buys one of their statues, then they’ll buy a house somewhere in Paris or something, and he’ll explore the crypts, and it’ll be fun, and they’ll never think of mom again.

* * *

He’s six and a week old when he starts his daily trips to the park.

Everyday Yusaku has been going to the park a block down from their house to test his duel disk after school and the shop, and sometimes he notices another boy walking the way he goes. He’s not really an outside person, but he doesn’t want to practice in the backyard, where he could scare someone. This isn’t one of the duel disks that let you go online, so the holograms are augmented-reality rather than virtual-reality. 

He’s good about it, though. He doesn’t summon big monsters, just the small ones. And since he doesn’t have anyone to play with he can’t practice summoning the bigger ones anyway. And his duel disk isn’t an action disk, so there’s no mass being produced, which means everything is harmless anyway. He just gets to practice some of the easier combos for real and marvel at the way the holograms animate his monsters. Sometimes he can swear they’re trying to talk to him, giving cute cries or waves when they’re summoned. Winks and smiles, and growls. It’s amazing, like having tons of friends.

So he’s just enjoying his new duel disk until the majesty wears off. He’s having fun though, and it makes him happy. He’s never been outside this much before, so this is clearly the best gift so far. Although he was having a lot of fun with the computer, and he really, really, liked his stuffed animals. Enough that Dr. Flips was probably jealous. But the duel disk was the one he was playing with the most right now.

Pépère says he’s allowed to go as far as the park by himself, but no further, he has to be back before dinner, and he can’t talk to any strangers unless they were little kids like him. It’s all very adulty rules, and ones Yusaku swears to follow because being allowed to go to the park by himself makes him feel very adult. And everyday when he comes home, back to their little house with their shop, he reports that he didn’t talk to any strangers. And pépère pats his head and says how proud he is of how grown up he’s being. And Yusaku is proud of how grown-up he’s been too, because life is being a little bit better now. Or more fun. Life was always good for him. 

Dr. Flips is mad at him though, because Yusaku thinks he’s old enough that he should stop taking his stuffed animals everywhere. It’s caused a lot of hurt feelings, but he thinks the sea lion understands. It’s something that pépère never stops smiling about when Yusaku updates him on their arguments. He always takes Dr. Flip’s side too, which is just plain unfair as far as Yusaku knows. Pépère was supposed to be on his side, because he’s Yusaku’s grandfather and he’s trying to be a grown-up. But all pépère ever does is start humming loudly and going back to blowing glass again. And Yusaku doesn’t pout afterwards, no matter how much pépère coos about how cute he is.

But that’s all beside the point!

The point is, everyday he goes to the park to practice his dueling so that one day he can be a professional and tell everyone about their shop. And he is getting better, a little bit at a time. He’d probably be even better if he had other people to practice with besides pépère when he can get him to pick up his fairytale deck. But pépère is super bad at playing his deck, so it’s easy to beat him. Yusaku has approached the topic of maybe making a new deck, but everytime he tries pépère threatens him by saying that if he keeps trying he’ll make Yusaku call him grand-père, and that’s just not acceptable. Because pépère is pépère, and Yusaku doesn’t care that the name is technically baby talk. It’s not like anyone else where they live is going to know, no one else speaks French here. So Yusaku is free to abuse the language barrier all he wants and retain his grown-up-ness.

So, yes, at the ripe old age of six years and one week old, Yusaku is already growing up and trying to start his career. He has a whole map made of the timeline, with all the mathy classes he would need, and everything he would have to do to become a professional duelist. And then a vague plan to go to France and reopen their shop. Also, he’ll be in love with someone because according to the cartoons falling in love give you motivation to be better.

It would be easier to plan that bit if pépère didn’t burst out into loud laughter that lasted whole minutes and involve a lot of banging his fist against the table the first time Yusaku told him, which then involved a lot of not-pouting on his part and a lot of bribing from his grandfather to get him to talk again. But that does not change the fact that Yusaku has to find his soulmate. Which, when he tells his grandfather that bit of information, has the older man laughing a lot again.

He was working very hard on these plans and he thinks he doesn’t deserve to be laughed at, so he ends up ignoring pépère the whole day while he works on his computer. Only it’s hard to be mad when pépère sings Le Festin really loudly and serves ratatouille for dinner because he thinks he’s funny.

* * *

At six and two weeks old Yusaku meets a boy.

He’s on his daily run to the park when he turns a corner and smacks into a boy. He falls back, his duel monster cards fly everywhere, scattering across the hard concrete as he falls on his butt. His palms scrap on the ground, stinging just enough to hurt a little bit, but it’s only a little-little bit, so he’s fine. He’s more concerned about the other boy than scrapped palms. 

The other boy is his age, which has him a little intimidated because he’s not actually all that good at talking to people his age. Older people, yeah, he can talk to them fine. But kids his age are a mystery that Yusaku can’t seem to solve. But now he’s forced to interact with one, because he’s not rude, and running into the other boy was worth apologising for.

But he gets distracted by all the duel monster cards scattered over the ground.

Duel Monsters isn’t an unpopular game. Pretty much everyone has a deck, even if they don’t really play. And it’s such a big part of everything that everyone knows the rules, and everyone knows the celebrities that play, and people call out of work to watch events. Even pépère, who doesn’t care for it, places bets with his friends on who will win a big tournament. So he doesn’t know why he’s so pleasantly surprised to see the other boy had duel monster cards. Probably because it gives him a convenient opening to actually talk to someone first, for once, so after apologizing he lances onto the topic, “You play duel monsters too?”

“Yeah.” The boy nods, and Yusaku is giddy with excitement, because he is about to have an actual conversation. He takes a moment to study his new potential friend; all silvery-haired, except that blue bit. It’s the opposite of pépère’s, whose hair is long and blue with only some silver. And the boy has kinda-blueish eyes, and kinda tannish skin. It’s very different from all the pale people that Yusaku knows, and he wonders for a minute if the boy is like him, and his parents are from somewhere not here. But it’s not very important to think about when the boy is smiling at him and nodding, all friendly. “You too?”

“Yeah.” Yusaku helps to gather the cards, running through them to see which ones are his and which ones aren’t. “I love it.”

And he does really love the game. It’s so interesting, and there’s so many different ways to play it, and the monsters are so alive! Every game on a duel disk is like being at a circus, and it feels magical. 

  
  


“Want to come over to my house and play?”

Yusaku’s heart does a funny jump, and his whole body is jumpy, but he’s happy. The game will probably be more magical with a friend. A real friend. Not stuffed animals like Dr. Flips, or holograms like his monsters, but a real friend that can talk and play and give warm hugs. He’s so happy he has to keep himself from yelling, but it doesn’t work very well because he’s blurting out a loud, “Yes!”

The other boy smiles, holding out his hand for Yusaku to take. And he does, reaching out and grabbing it with his own, his heart still doing funny jumps and twists. It feels kind of like he’s flying right now. He thinks he could run around the whole world. But he doesn’t, because he wants to be friends with this boy. And his hand is soft, and warm, and he bets the boy gives warm hugs too. 

“I’m Yusaku.” He tells the boy, letting him lead him down the street to where his house probably is. He’s not really supposed to go past the park, but this is a big moment for him, so he doesn’t think pépère will mind too much. As long as he doesn’t talk to an adult stranger it should be fine.

“I’m Ryou.” The boy tells him, smiling and pulling him along. Ryou. That’s a cool name. Ryou, Ryou, Ryou. Yusaku runs the name through his head a dozen times. A hundred times. The name of his new friend. Maybe his soon to be best friend if this goes well. 

“It’s nice to meet you!” He squeezes the boy’s hand, stepping up a little faster so they’re side by side and walking together. “Do you live close by?”

“Nice to meet you too.” The boy, Ryou, smiles at him. He’s so friendly it makes Yusaku’s tummy warm. “Yeah, I live down the road a bit.”

“I’ve never seen you at school.” Yusaku tells him, and it’s true. There’s all sorts of people at school, but he very specifically hasn’t seen this boy. He thinks he would remember him, because he’s just different enough to be worth remembering. And he’s pretty. The way pépère’s glass statues are pretty. Shiny and strange and magical to look at. 

He should get earrings, dangly ones like pépère has. Crystal ones, blue ones, because he’s very blue and silvery. 

“I’m homeschooled.” Ryou tells him. He doesn’t seem sad about it at all, even though Yusaku thinks it’s a shame. They could have met a long time ago. Or maybe it was a good thing that he wasn’t, because who knows if Yusaku would have become friends with him. He might have already made friends, and Yusaku has a hard time trying to break into groups. Shy is what pépère calls it. 

“Sounds boring.” Yusaku says instead, nodding to himself at the satisfying answer. “But so is normal school, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Normal school is probably more fun.” Ryou wrinkles his nose, frowning. “I don’t get to play with other kids a lot. It’s mostly just my father and I.”

Ah, so he was lonely too. Well, that’s okay! They didn’t have to be lonely anymore if they became friends! Two lonely people could be not-lonely together! “I don’t have a lot of friends either, so it’s fine.”

Ryou looks at him weird, his smile turning into a frown. Oh no, Yusaku has already messed this up. Stupid. He’s so stupid. Why did he tell Ryou that? Now Ryou probably thinks he’s weird and that something is wrong with him.

“How come?” Ryou asks. It makes Yusaku’s stomach hurt a little, because he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to tell Ryou that he has trouble talking to other kids his age, and he gets nervous trying if they’re busy playing or talking to their actual friends. And that he sometimes slips up and forgets the other kids don’t speak French, so it’s even harder when he actually tries. 

“I’m shy.” He tells Ryou instead, because that’s what his teachers say. He’s just shy, he’ll make friends once he gets over that. He hopes it’s a good excuse. 

Ryou seems to think it is, because he makes an “ahhh” noise and nods his head, smiling again. His hand squeezes Yusaku’s, and everything is suddenly better again, “Well you don’t have to be shy with me. I already like you.”

The words make his heart all happy again, and all he can do is nod and smile. “I like you too!”

They talk a little bit as they walk, getting to know each other. He learns that Ryou’s dad is some kind of doctor, and that he likes fancy food, and that his favorite color is blue. And Yusaku shares a little bit too, about pépère making glass, about his favorite color being yellow because it looks like sunflowers. And if Ryou wonders what a pépère is, or why Yusaku didn’t mention his mom or dad, then he doesn’t mention it. Just like how Yusaku doesn’t ask Ryou why he didn’t mention a mom.

When they actually make it to Ryou’s house Yusaku has to stop and take it all in. It’s huge! It’s the big house on the hill. The one that Yusaku always thought looked like it could fit so many people. The one he thought a movie star must live in. “Whoa! You live here?”

“I do.” Ryou says, and he has to open the doors by pushing a lot of buttons on a fancy looking keypad. And then the double doors swing open all by themselves, and all Yusaku can do is stare open-mouthed and wide-eyed. He whispers a “woooooow” really low, and Ryou tries not to laugh at him as he pulls Yusaku through the doors and into the house. “Come on, I’ll show you my room!”

“Okay.” Yusaku nods, following his new best friend inside.

* * *

Yusaku is six years and two weeks and maybe a day old when he wakes up in a white room. 

At first he thinks that maybe he just fell asleep in Ryou’s living room, because it was super white, and all the furniture was white and leather, and even the fuzzy rug was white. So at first the only thing he thinks about is how rude he was for falling asleep at his new friend’s house, and how mad pépère was going to be that Yusaku was late for dinner, and how his grandfather didn’t know where he was and must be super worried. 

Then Yusaku pushes himself up and realizes there’s nothing else in the room. 

Everything is white, and there’s nothing in here. There’s no carpet, and the floor is hard as rocks. The walls are all a shiny white that hurts his eyes. And he can’t find a door no matter how hard he looks. The only thing that stands out from the white are Yusaku’s own clothes, and a little purple headset on top of a brown blankie, and some numbers on the wall in front of him. 

“Ryou?” He asks, suddenly very scared. “This isn’t funny…”

“Subject six.” A voice that sounds sort of like those ladies on those computer lessons at school speaks. Yusaku looks upwards to where the voice is coming from, but there’s no hologram, or pictures, or computers, or even a speaker he can find to explain where the voice is coming from. “Six years of age. Biological sex female. Three fourths Asian descent, one fourth Caucasian. Duel record zero. Please put on your headset and begin dueling.”

Yusaku bites his lip, not feeling right. He likes dueling, but right now it’s not very important. He needs to call his pépère and tell him he’s coming home soon so he doesn’t worry. And he needs to tell Ryou that he’s going home. He might have missed dinner. It feels like he’s missed dinner. His tummy feels hungry, so he’s sure he missed dinner. “I can’t, I have to go home.”

“Please put on your headset and begin dueling.” The robot lady says again, like she hadn’t even heard Yusaku at all. Maybe she didn’t. Sometimes robot ladies don’t hear you when you try to talk to them. Which would be bad for Yusaku right now, because he doesn’t have time to play.

“I can’t.” He shakes his head. “I have to go home or I’ll get in trouble.”

“Please put on your headset and begin dueling, or you will face discipline.” The robot lady says, and Yusaku thinks that, maybe, something good isn’t happening. He’s pretty sure something good isn’t happening. And now he’s starting to get really scared. He’s also starting to shake a lot, and he doesn’t even care that his eyes are starting to get all wet.

“Where’s Ryou?” He asks, and it comes out kind of wobbly, but they’re not broken up so he thinks he did a good job. “Tell him that I want to go home now.”

“This is your last warning, please put on your headset or you will face discipline.” The robot tells him, and somehow it sounds more angry despite not sounding angry at all. It scares him, it scares him really bad. But he has to go home.

“If I put it on and duel, will you let me go home?” He asks, hoping that maybe just one duel will make the robot lady less angry. 

“You have been warned, discipline is active,” Is all the robot lady says because Yusaku’s whole world is suddenly in pain. 

One time, Yusaku burned his hand on the stove when he touched it while pépère was cooking. That pain was nothing compared to this. It was like that pain, only worse, and all over, and with a lot more stinging. This was the worst thing Yusaku ever felt, and he thinks he’s going to die. This is what he thinks maybe dying feels like. And by the time it’s over he realizes he’s on the floor, and now his whole everything aches, and he doesn’t want to move ever again. He’s crying too, big fat tears all down his face, and he never wanted to go home so much before. He doesn’t think a thousand of pépère’s kisses will make this better. Not even a thousand hugs from Dr. Flips will make this better. And all Yusaku wants is to go to bed and never leave it again.

“Please put on your headset and begin dueling.” The robot lady says, “Or you will face discipline.”

“No.” Yusaku groans, pushing himself up. He’s crying now, just doing nothing but crying, sitting on this hard floor and crying like a baby. “I don’t want to duel. I want to go home.”

“Please put on your headset and begin dueling, or you will face discipline.” 

“I want to go home.” Yusaku begs, crying as hard as he can to show that he really means it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I won’t go anywhere without telling pépère again. Just let me go home.”

But all he gets is another pain. It hurts so bad. And he doesn’t even think or know anything else but pain until he realizes he’s on the floor again. He’s crying too hard to speak, and it takes him so long to stop that he’s scared he’s going to get shocked again. But he guesses the robot lady must be able to hear him after all, because she doesn’t say anything until he stops crying, “Please put on your headset and begin dueling.”

“Where’s Ryou?” Yusaku cries harder and harder, rubbing his eyes with his fists, “Tell him I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be bad at dueling. I’ll be better next time. Just let me go home.”

But this time the robot lady doesn’t even warn him, she just makes the pain come back. And it’s somehow worse than the other two times combined. He wakes up curled on the floor, holding himself and trying to twist and turn so he can lay in whatever way hurts less.

“Please put on your headset and begin dueling, or you will face discipline.” The robot lady says again once he’s stopped crying.

This time Yusaku listens to her, grabbing the headset from on top of the blankie and putting it on. His world is no longer white, but instead a bunch of unfriendly back backgrounds and whole collections of cards he can choose from to make a deck. He has to go through a lot of them, building a deck from hundreds and hundreds of choices before they finally have him dueling.

It’s like a regular real life card game at a table; no holograms, no friendly animations. Just cards on a table, only on a computer so he can’t even really hold the plasticy papers. He wishes he were holding them, he feels like he could do better if he were holding them. But all he has are empty hands to poke at the screen with. 

It doesn’t matter, he just has to duel, right? Maybe if he wins they’ll let him go home?

He hopes so.

* * *

Yusaku doesn’t know how long he’s been in the room. 

He doesn’t know how many days it’s been, and he’s lost count a long time ago. There’s no way to tell if the time the lights come on or the time the lights turn off matches daytime and nighttime. And it doesn’t feel like they do either. The light times drag on and on forever, and the dark times are barely there at all. 

Everyday is the same now. All he can do is stand and duel. There’s nothing else in the white room, no one to talk to, or hug, or practice with. Even the robot lady stopped talking to him after the first day. Now the only talking he hears comes from the headset, when the computer man tells him what affects the cards in the duel have against him. And even that is slowly starting to fade as it realizes Yusaku has heard a particular card’s effects enough. So most days are filled with a whole lot of quiet, with not even the duel having sound. 

The only noises he ever hears anymore are brief. The beeping that comes before punishment if he loses the duel. The sound of his body hitting the floor. The sound of the drone’s wings whirling when they bring him food. Noises are rare these days, and there are more bad noises than good.

At first he tried to talk to himself, speaking in French so that the robot lady can’t understand him if she’s listening, and trying to remind himself of pépère, but that turned out to be a bad idea. He’s already tried more than not, and talking only makes him more tired. He’s always sore, and talking makes him more sore. And it makes him thirsty when he already only gets water a few times a day. And it makes his hunger worse when he doesn’t get any food. So he stops talking, because it’s easier and hurts less. 

The pain is always there now, and so is the hunger. No matter how much better he gets at dueling, he never wins enough to make up for the food he missed the rest of the day. And every duel gets harder and harder the more he does manage to win. So more often than not he’s punished, shocked from his collar and sent flying into the wall or the floor, and his stomach ends up growling and clawing in hunger. He stopped wishing for pépère’s cooking a long time ago. Now all he wants is bread or mush or soup. His dreams are so small now he only wants the small mercies. More of those little pills they give him. More of the pudding. More of the bread. He can’t even remember what food that isn't those things tastes like. And the pain he feels, the less it starts mattering. Any food is good food. 

He’s forgotten what it was like to go to bed happy and with a full belly. He doesn’t even remember what it was like not to hurt. And all he can do every dark time before he curls under his pitiful blanket and falls asleep is hope that someone finds him soon. 

He never thought he could be more lonely.

* * *

He doesn’t know how old he is when he wonders why he ever liked duel monsters in the first place.

It’s really not all that fun, not when it’s all you do everyday, and not when there’s no effects to make the monsters more lively. It’s boring, and hard to understand. There are so many different complex rules, and summoning methods, and dozens and dozens of things different monsters and spells can do that can completely destroy you. It’s difficult, and frustrating, and he doesn’t even know how he ever thought it was fun. 

And maybe that’s because before he didn’t actually care if he won or not. Maybe before he was just using the game as a way to make friends, because everyone has a deck even if they don’t like the game. Except even making friends didn’t work for him, because he only ever made one friend with duel monsters, and Yusaku can’t even remember his name. He doesn’t remember much of anything before the white room. He doesn’t even know where that friend is.

The boy hopes he’s okay. He hopes his friend didn’t end up in a room like this one. It’s the only thing he can really hope for anymore. He’s given up on the hope that someone will find him a long time ago. All he wants anymore is to sleep. That’s all. He just wants to lay down and go to sleep, and maybe if he’s lucky he’ll never have to wake up again. Then there would be no more pain, and no more hunger, and no more dueling. Just sleep. 

He thinks that maybe that sleep will come for him soon.

Everything hurts all over again, and he can’t even whimper anymore. He just lays there, curled on his side, trying to maybe hurt a little less than if he was just laying normally. He’s so tired, even the pain doesn’t keep him up anymore. He thinks he might fall asleep now. Maybe. And a shock might wake him up or it might not. He doesn’t know anymore. 

He’s tired.

There are black dots all around his vision, and all he can do is let his eyes slip closed. Just for a little bit, just for a second. He doesn’t wanna duel right now. He just wants a second. Just one. Just a bit of time. Just this once.

But he doesn’t get that.

“You...” A voice whispers. Green eyes peel open, slowly, because he can’t really believe that he heard that word. It’s been so long since he’s heard words that he doesn’t even know what that word means at first, and it takes a bit for him to realize it even is a word. Then he can’t help but wonder if he’s finally gotten so bad that his head is making up hearing things now, and he can’t even be surprised.

“Hey, you.” He hears again, and he starts to realize that the words are coming from behind one of the walls. So the boy pushes himself up, looking for the voice, forcing his aching body to turn so he doesn’t miss any of the words. “Think of three things.”

* * *

Everyday, every single day, he thinks of three things.

It’s probably more like every hour, or even every few minutes, but he always thinks of three reasons to live. He thinks about them over and over and over again, and that’s what keeps him going. It’s all that keeps him going anymore. Those three things are why he wakes up, they’re why he wins duels, they’re why he eats, and moves, and breaths.

His body is heavier than it’s ever been, and the pain is just as bad as it’s always been, but he gets up anyway. Even when he’s still hungry, even when his bones scream, he stands up and he duels and he tries to win enough food to make it to the next day. 

He doesn’t know how much longer he can hold on, but he tries anyway, because he has to hold on to something. Something is better than nothing, and nothing is what he’s going to be if he lays down. And he needs to get out alive if he’s going to...to…

_Three things_!

He has three whole reasons to live, and if he dies then he’s letting those three things down. And he needs to live for them, he has too. Because someday he is going to get out of here, he just needs to last long enough for that to happen.

And he does.

Because one day the white room goes grey, and suddenly there’s a door. And Yusaku doesn’t really know what’s happening at first, because he almost forgot what doors looked like, or what grey was. But it doesn’t matter, because he remembers what doors are, and he knows what they look like when they open. And it does, it opens, and he’s blinded by dizzying light brighter than even the white walls of the room, and there’s so much noise, too much noise. Noise so loud it hurts, and his head spins, and he feels a little sick from it.

Someone grabs him.

He hasn’t been touched in so long that it feels strange, and it hurts, his already painful body screaming at the hands lifting him. He can’t scream though, his voice having stopped a long time ago. All that comes out are low pained somethings. And the hands try to be gentler, they really do, he can tell, but nothing is going to keep from hurting. But he’s being held in someone’s arms, he thinks, cradled like a baby, and that’s probably as unpainful as things are going to be. 

Then they’re moving, and he tries again to peer at where they’re going, but the light is too strong for his eyes, and he has to shut them really tight to keep from hurting more and more. There’s so much noise too, he thinks he’s going to be sick. There’s too much going on, so many things happening at once after so long of nothing. He feels sick, and like maybe he’d throw up what precious little food he’s had if there were anything in his stomach at all.

It’s been so long since someone has touched him that his skin tingles through his clothes. Every part of him is aware of where he’s being touched right now, because that part of him screams. He’s hyper aware of everything, yet drawing in too many sensations all at once. 

Someone coos at him, he thinks, but he can’t tell what is up or down anymore. It’s too much, it’s all too much, and his body jerks. It jerks like it’s trying to throw up, but nothing is coming out. A heat spreads through his body, and his vision bleeds black, and he’s fading in and out, until finally he’s not even awake anymore.

* * *

The boy wakes up in a room that’s different colors from the white room.

There’s beeping sounds all in his ears, and soft noises of ladies walking around and whispering in low voices, and it’s already almost too much for him. Everything feels muted, somehow, and still all too loud. He peels open his eyes, and finds he’s laying under a blanket, on top of a thing he remembers is a bed after a few moments of wonder. His arms are connected to lots of tubs and things that drip liquids into him, and it’s all so very different from the life he knows. 

The room isn’t white, that’s all he can think. It’s some kind of grey, or stained color, but it’s not white. It’s the only thing he can think of for a while. The room isn’t white, and there are so many things in it. And there’s an open door, and windows where he can see everything going on outside. And even that little bit feels like too much, because he’s sick to his stomach again, and he needs to pinch his eyes shut just to stop from feeling bad.

He doesn’t know how long he lays there, just waiting for something to happen. Maybe for a robotic voice to tell him to duel, or a shock, or something. But nothing happens for a long time, and his ears are almost starting to get used to the beeping. Not quite, but almost. And then footsteps come into the room, and a soft voice speaks to him, “Fujiki Yuno?”

He’s too tired to tell them that’s the wrong name, so he hums instead, peering open his eyes to look at the person. 

It’s a person, he realizes a little too late. He knew that the moment he looked at the person, but it takes a bit to remember what that means. And when he remembers he starts crying a bit, because he hasn’t seen a person in a long, long, time. And this person is a doctor, and he remembers that doctors are supposed to make people feel better after they’ve been hurt.

The doctor is a lady doctor, and she shushes him softly and tells him he’s going to be alright, and that no one is going to hurt him anymore. She tells him all kinds of things, like how he’s been asleep for a long time, and how she’s been feeding him because he’s underweight, and how he’ll have food from now on, and how scary this must have all been, but it’s okay because he’s safe now, and they’ve called his mother and she’s on her way.

And he can’t do anything but cry, because he doesn’t believe it. This is all a cruel dream, and he’s going to wake up in the white room again. And then the doctor is shushing him and patting his hair, but even that’s too much, and he almost throws up from how overwhelming it is. So the doctor stops, and tells him that he has to get used to things again, and that he’ll be okay because they’ll do everything in their power to help him. And he really, really, wishes he could believe that, but he just can’t.

So he lays there and cries, so terrified he’ll wake up that he can’t do anything else.

* * *

Yusaku is six years and maybe seven months old when he remembers the right name for himself. 

It’s the day after he woke up in the hospital for the first time, and he still thinks that maybe this is some sort of dream or test, but he’s been focusing on trying to remember things. He realizes, to his horror, that he can’t remember much of anything about his life before he was in the room, so he spends the entire day trying to remember. 

He does this in threes.

First, he has to remember three things about himself. He starts with things he already knows. One, he’s a boy. Two, everyone thinks he’s a girl because he was born a girl. Three, he has blue hair with bits of pinkish bits. 

Then he moves on to three things he has to remember by piecing together what he knows about himself. First, he remembers that his boy name he picked for himself is Yusaku. Then, he remembers that someone had helped him pick the name out. Finally, he realizes that maybe this someone was taking care of him before he was part of the white room. 

From there he decides to piece together what his life was like before the white room. First, he had someone raising him, so it was probably this mother that the doctor told him they called. Second, he doesn’t actually remember anything about his mother in particular, but he does remember that he loved whoever raised him deeply. Third, if he loved his mother deeply and they called her, then he probably really was safe. 

And then from there he starts trying to remember how the world works. First, he’s probably going to live with his mother since she’s the one that takes care of him. Second, he would have to stay in the hospital and get better before he can actually go with her though. Third, everything outside the white room is too loud, too colorful, and too much so it’ll probably be a long time before that happens.

Sometimes even just laying here is too much for him. Even after what turned out to be a week, which he remembers is seven days, which he remembers is when the sun and moon changes, is too much for him. His body still aches a lot even after no punishments come. And even moving his arms tends to be a chore. But the world continues to be loud and bright and full of smells even after he goes completely still, and he has to pinch his eyes shut and throw the pillow over his head to try and make it all go away. 

How can the world be so loud when everyone is trying to be quiet?

But there’s nothing he can do about that. The doctor and her nurses all say that he’s just going to have to get used to those things slowly, and they give him headphones to block out the noise. But he won’t wear them, because they remind him too much of the headset and he’s terrified that they’ll shock him. He doesn’t know if it’s some kind of test or not, so he keeps them on the bed but doesn’t touch them. 

The nurses bring him food after a while, and he cries again because it’s more food than he’s seen in a long, long, time. 

It’s a bowl of soup. Broth the nurses tell him, chicken broth, with a few vegetables inside. And there’s bread, and a little cup of pudding. And it’s the most delicious thing he’s had in a long time. Too flavorful. Too much flavor. It stings his mouth and overwhelms him, and his eyes are leaking again, but not because he’s sad this time. And the nurses are all really distressed when he tells them the flavor is too much, because this is the mildest soup they have. 

Eventually, after a lot of begging, one of the nurses gets him to try on the headphones. But it’s only after she wears them for a long time and they don’t shock her. Yusaku is hesitant even then, thinking maybe she is still tricking him, and that there’s some sort of remote control that does the shocking, and a robot is watching them. But when he slips them on the world goes quiet again, and the only thing he can hear are a lot of really low sounds that they explain were designed to help him get used to noises again. 

He doesn’t take off the headphones after that, nor does he take them off after they leave him. Life is easier with the headphones on, and then all he has to worry about is turning the noises on and off sometimes as far as his ears go. Now he can focus on sights and smells and his skin. Two of those are easy to fix with his pillow or a pair of sunglasses that one of the nurses gave him that helps the world go dark, but there’s nothing that doesn’t make his skin itch from how soft they are. 

That’s another thing, his skin has scars now.

They’re long, viney, things that twist in all sorts of fern patterns. Electrical scarring is what the nurses called it. The collar he was wearing shocked him too much, so he has these scars down his throat and arms mostly. There’s some on his belly and legs too, but his hands and face are okay, so he should be able to hide them with clothes once he’s better. 

“At least they’re not ugly?” One of the younger nurses tries, even though the older ones glare at her for it. She ends up rubbing the back of her head, laughing uncomfortably. “They’re actually really pretty!”

The older nurse kicks her out of the room for that, and the next time she sees Yusaku she apologizes a whole lot and promises she was just trying to make him feel better about them. 

“It’s okay.” He tells her, and it hurts so much to talk, and his voice is strange after so long, “I don’t care about them.”

He wishes she didn’t look so devastated by the words, because he really means it. He’s learned a long time ago not to care about things like this. So long as he’s not in pain he’s fine.

* * *

Yusaku is definitely six years and seven months old when he meets his mother. 

It’s hard to miss her when she walks in, because in the whole week or two he’s been awake in the hospital no one has ever been so loud. There have beens strangers that come and go outside the windows of his room, people he assumes are related to the other kids, who he hasn’t met yet because none of them can walk, but they’ve never been quite like her. 

His mother doesn’t so much as walk in the room as she does click into the room. Her heels are high, and pink, and they click so loudly that Yusaku can only flinch. They draw attention, and they make everything else go quiet around them. And his mother is somehow even scarier than her shoes, standing there like she has all the power in the world to hurt you, one hand on her hip, the other snatching off a pair of sunglasses that are much fancier than the ones the nurses gave him. Her lips are a purpley-pink, and her eyes are blue with thick black lashes. Here her hair is half blue like his, but green around all the edges. And she has big, dangly, earrings that never stop moving and almost distracts him from how fancy she is.

“She looks terrible.” His mother’s voice is hard, sharp, and it makes him flinch. 

The nurse that followed her in flinches too, looking uncomfortable as she tries to explain, “I’m sorry Ms. Queen, but your daughter is suffering from severe malnourishment and muscular dystrophy. She’s also recovering from her electrical burns, and now has sensory issues that are impacting the speed of her recov-”

“Shut up.” His mother snaps, sunglasses off and eyes glaring at the nurse, “I can see that for myself.”

The nurse flinches back, looking shocked by his mother’s behavior. Then she looks angry, but her lips pinch shut and she refuses to speak again. This is just fine by his mother, who swerves her gaze towards him, eyes locking with his own, “What do you remember from before you were taken?”

Her tone is no warmer facing him, and no less sharp. Every part of her makes him feel scared again, and he sinks down into the mattress and hopes the blankets will eat him.

“Well?” She snaps again, and he realizes he should probably answer.

“I don’t know…” He tells her, and he wishes his words weren’t so soft, because he feels like she doesn’t like that. “I don’t remember anything. I’m sorry.”

His mother clicks her tongue, throwing her head back and putting her sunglasses back on, “Just as well, maybe it will be easier this way.”

He feels a lump in his throat, and suddenly he’s not so sure he wants to be anywhere around his mother. He doesn’t feel that lingering sense of warmth and love he remembers from before. No, when he looks at her all he feels is a cold doom approaching. 

“I am Queen, your mother.” His mother taps the edge of her glasses, her other hand still resting on her hip, “You’re my daughter, Fujiki Yuno. I had you nearly seven years ago now. I suppose I’ll be taking care of you now.”

A mix of hope and dread builds in him, and he can’t keep himself from asking, “What about my father?”

“Don’t you worry about him.” His mother taps her foot, nose wrinkling for a moment, “He’s out of the picture. You’ve been lucky enough never met him, and by god, you never will.”

The nurse looks every uncomfortable at the words, but she can’t be as uncomfortable as he is. He doesn’t know what to take from his mother’s words, but he has a feeling it’s a bad sign. Everything about his mother is a bad sign, and he’s starting to wonder if maybe he should live in the hospital from now on. “Never?”

His mother’s face softens just a little bit at that, and for a moment Yusaku has hope that maybe he was wrong, “No, not ever. No daughter of mine is going to ever meet an inferior human being. He was just a stepping stone in our lives, one we’ve moved past.”

And all at once Yusaku loses that bit of hope. He’s scared now, and he feels like he maybe shouldn’t tell his mother that he’s actually a boy. So he keeps his mouth shut and just nods, “Okay.”

Mother nods, satisfied with his answer, “Good. Then as soon as you’re safe to leave you’ll be living with me.”

His stomach rolls at that, and he feels his toes curl and fingers grip the sheets tight. He doesn’t think he wants to live with her, he doesn’t think he even wants to leave this hospital. Everything...everything is already too much for him, and he doesn’t want to think…

“What if the bad men come for me?” He asks, and the beeping in the room has gone louder, and faster. But he doesn’t care about the beeping, he cares about the bad men. The ones that put him in the room. The ones the nurses said they’d keep him safe from. If he goes back outside he might...might…

He doesn’t remember much about how the bad men got him, but he remembers he was going to a friend’s house when it happened. If they could get him when he was near friends and houses then what if they can get him at his own house? What if he’s in the back yard and they grab him? 

“Don’t you worry about that.” His mother’s voice is odd, with something somehow even harder than her normal voice, more...more...scary. “I can promise you they won’t be able to touch you again.”

The way she says it is so strong, so sure, that he can’t help but believe her.

* * *

The night after he meets his mother, when she leaves because she’s not the kind of lady that sleeps on the chair next to his bed, he tries to walk for the first time.

He’s not supposed to be out of the best for a long time, but he’s scared. He doesn’t know when his mother is going to come back and take him out of the hospital forever, so he needs to check on the other kids.

It’s something that’s been eating at him, that there were other kids stuck in rooms like his. It scares him, and the idea makes him want to cry. He’s not really surprised, because he had a friend, and then he was in a room, so logically his friend was probably in a room too. And then there had been that voice, which he also thinks may have been his friend. So really that’s just proof that the boy had been there.

He doesn’t get very far with his walking, just a few steps, and then the nurses are in his room and picking him up and fretting all over him. And it’s too much touch, and he regrets even trying to walk. But he wants, needs, to find his friend. He just wants to know that his friend is okay. He needs to. His friend...his friend…

“I can’t remember my friend’s name.” His eyes are watering again, his hands clutching the nurse’s uniform. The nurse flinches, but all Yusaku can do is keep begging, “W-We were together! And then I was in the room. And I heard him. And I want to see my friend. And he’s special! I need to see my friend. Please, please…”

The nurse seems to not be able to listen to him anymore, and he carries Yusaku out of the room, rolling the stand with the tubs with them and promising the other nurses that they would be right back. Yusaku’s feet dangle from the nurse’s side, and he needs to wear his sunglasses in the bright hallway. 

All of the kids were near each other, only one empty room between them. They have the whole floor to themselves, according to the nurse, and security keeps the rest of the staff and others from entering this floor of the kids ward, so it’s super easy for them to get around. 

The nurse skips the room belonging to the only girl, because Yusaku’s friend was a boy, so it obviously wasn’t her. Well...Yusaku is pretty sure his friend isn’t like him, with a girl body. He’s only more sure when he sees her through the window, with a head of brown hair, and a lady that might be her mom sleeping in the chair next to her bed.

He hears the next kid talking before he sees him through the window, and he knows this isn’t his special person. The voice isn’t right, and when he gets a glance of silvery and red hair he knows that it was the wrong boy.

The next boy is wrong too, because he has green hair, and Yusaku knows that his friend’s hair was silvery. So the nurse nods, saying he knows which boy he’s talking about now, and skips to a window with a boy that does have silvery hair.

Only that’s not his friend.

“That’s not him.” Yusaku can already feel himself shaking, his grip so tight on the nurse that he’s afraid he’s hurting them. “That’s not him.”

“But that’s all of the children we found.” The nurse looks stressed, frowning deeply, “Are you sure that’s not him? It’s been a long time since you’ve seen him.”

“That’s not him.” Yusaku is shaking, he knows it. “He’s not here.”

His nurse looks sick now, his arms gripping Yusaku tightly. It stings, because Yusaku still isn’t used to being touched, so everything feels tingly, and it only feels worse when he’s so unhappy. “Are you sure your friend was there? Maybe you-”

“I heard him.” Yusaku shakes his head, overwhelmed, “He was there. I heard him. I remember it!”

He’s ready to cry now, he thinks he is crying. He doesn’t know. All he knows is that the boy, his friend, the one that saved him, the one that gave him hope isn’t here. And if he isn’t here then that means he’s probably still in the bad place with the white rooms and the shocks and...and...and…

“Oh shit.” Is all he hears before the whole world is just loud ringing and no air.

* * *

For the next week Yusaku can’t be happy.

Knowing that his special person was never found makes him unhappy in ways he didn’t know he could be anymore. He was already unhappy before, but now the bit of hope he’d felt before is all gone. How can he be happy when he knows that his friend is still suffering?

The nurses tried to make him feel better, but there’s nothing that can make him feel better. They told him that they called the police, told them about his friend and the little bit of descriptions he was able to give them, but there wasn’t another boy at the place they were. The building was empty now, no sign of who had been there, and no kids locked up. But that doesn’t make him feel better, not at all.

It...changes things.

He doesn’t taste food anymore. Tasting things just doesn’t happen anymore, and where before he thought the broth was too much, now he couldn’t even tell it was the same thing. If there was a change from one bowl of broth to another, he couldn’t tell. Everything tastes like nothing now.

It makes him tired again. Tired like he hasn’t been since he first woke up. His body doesn’t hurt as much, but somehow it’s even harder to move. No part of him wants to get up, and he has to chant his three reasons for living over and over again just to lift his arms and sit up. 

The nurses bring in a psychologist, saying that they probably should have sooner, but they wanted to let him get used to the world a bit more first. His mother visits when the psychologist comes in, studying the lady from behind the rim of her sunglasses and clicking her tongue. Yusaku can already tell that this lady is going to be someone he sees a lot of, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to talk to him anyway. 

She asks him a lot of hard questions, like how he’s feeling, or if he’s hungry, or how he likes the food. And he tries to answer her as best he can, but it’s hard, and he doesn’t like talking, and even if he did he can’t talk much before he’s too tired to say anything. The psychologist just nods a lot, sometimes writing things down when he answers her questions, until it all finally ends. 

She leaves the room, and he knows his mother is waiting outside for her. But he can’t hear them through the walls, and he can’t see them through where the psychologist pulled the curtain shut. Whatever happens, though, the psychologist keeps coming back for as long as he’s at the hospital. She keeps asking questions, and he keeps answering, and she tries to explain that he’s gotten a special kind of sickness because of what happened to him. Mentally illnesses, she called them. It was his brain being not okay because of what happened, but it was something he could treat and live with if he tries. 

He promises her he’ll try.

* * *

Two weeks after he meets his psychologist he’s released from the hospital.

His nurses are all teary and crying all over the place, and they make him promise that he’ll be good for his mother, and that he’ll take his medicines. He does, and he takes his bag with his one set of clothes, wearing some pajamas one of the nurses bought him, and walks out of the hospital following his mother and her clicking heels.

It’s not a very friendly walk, leaving the hospital with her. He gets set in a wheelchair, and he’s pushed by a security guard until they’re out the back of the kid’s ward. It’s really, really, dark outside, and there’s a huge limo waiting for them outside. Because his mother is as rich as she looks he guesses. 

Somehow the hardest part of leaving is being alone with his mother in the backseat.

“You’ll be living in a wellness center.” His mother tells him, her legs crossed and her hands resting on her knees, fingers tapping away. “They’re full of professionals that will help you get through this. Nothing but the best.”

“I won’t be living with you?” He asks, and he thinks maybe he should be devastated, but he’s just numb. He can’t even be disappointed, because his mother isn’t someone he can find it in himself to trust or warm up to. But he can’t be relieved either, because he just...doesn’t feel anything. 

“Absolutely not.” His mother tells him, flicking off her glasses and glancing at him out the corner of her eye. “Not until you’re put together enough to keep from being distracting. I’m a business woman, and I can’t afford to to juggle my job and a traumatized child at the same time.”

So he’s going to live with professionals until he’s better enough to not be a burden. It makes his stomach turn, but he guesses he understands. It’s not exactly the loving family relationship he thought he had with her, but she’s not shocking him or starving him, so it’s fine. He’s sure he’ll be better off at the wellness center anyway. With people like the nice nurses, and other kids to play with. And he can get better there, stop being overwhelmed by sounds, and stop being empty all the time, maybe even taste food again. “Okay.”

“Good girl.” His mother nods, eyes flickering over him approvingly, “I have to say, you’re far more well behaved than I thought you’d be. I don’t know if that’s an effect of what happened, or if you were raised well.”

Yusaku looks away, staring down at his knees and squeezing them. He doesn’t want to think anything good came from the white room. Nothing good was worth what he went through in that room. So he hopes he was just raised well, even if he doesn’t remember any of it. “Didn’t you raise me?”

His mother huffs, looking away and putting her glasses back on, “My father. Your grandfather. He’s dead now. Died of heart failure during the six months you were gone.”

Something he didn’t know he still had breaks in him, and he can’t even cry anymore. He remembers a little bit, a face going with the knowledge. He remembers glass, and Le Festin, and hands with scars on them. And it’s all gone, and he’ll never get it back, and Yusaku wishes he still had tears he could cry, but he’s all dried up and can’t find any to pour for the man who loved him so much.

Yusaku never speaks French again after that day, he has no reason to anymore.

* * *

The wellness center is too colorful.

It’s painted in all sorts of blue and greens, with white clouds and bright flowers all on the walls. He has to wear his sunglasses all the time, and his headphones just as often, and it takes a long time for him to be able to leave his room and join other kids. 

He’s put in a classroom with other kids that have special reasons to be here. One has heart problems that constantly needed to be watched, something she shared loudly with him once he was introduced to them. Another has a disorder that makes him fall asleep at random times that just can’t be controlled. Another has a really bad fear of germs. There are all sorts of different things, and the teacher is trained to respond to them all.

No one makes him tell them why he’s here, because they’re all taught that some things are just private and they share at their own pace. He’s glad, because he can't bring himself to tell what he’s been through, especially since these kids are strangers. 

He also can’t quite bring himself to trust the kids.

Maybe it’s because the last time he had a friend it turned out bad, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t know where that friend is, or maybe it’s because something in him is just broken and can’t be fixed. No matter what it was, he couldn't bring himself to play with the others. It’s already hard to do anything else, much less try to find the energy to run around and play games. He just likes to sit quietly now, reading the books the teacher gives him, or coloring with crayons. But even those things he does when he can find the energy to not sleep.

Some of the kids try to get him to play duel monsters with them, but every time he looks at a duel disk or cards his throat closes up and his chest tightens painfully. Everything becomes harder to breath, and he has to get away as fast as he can or else he’s gonna get shocked-

His teacher says those are panic attacks, because he has something called “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” from what happened, and it’s something he might live with for the rest of his life, but that can get better a little bit at a time. Duel monsters, his teacher says, is a “trigger” for him because of how involved it was with what happened to him. And she has to explain that to the other kids quietly so they don’t offer to play with him again.

They look at him weird, he sees it, he knows they think it’s weird. The others don’t bring it up again, and don’t really play the game around him, but he knows now. He saw their looks, and he knows they think it’s weird. Because everyone plays duel monsters, even if they don’t care for it. It’s everywhere, and everyone does it even if they’re not good at it. He won’t be able to escape it forever and he knows that. But, maybe, and he hopes really hard, he doesn’t have to play himself if he’s careful enough.

So he sits away from the other kids even more, burying himself in books and small desk projects. The more he reads, the tireder he gets, and his teacher eventually stops getting him books about things that didn’t actually happen and gives him books about things that did happen. History books, science books, things like that. Things that really happen and can keep him a little less confused about reality. It’s focused, it’s real, it’s...better. He’s getting better. Maybe.

It’s something to focus on. 

* * *

Everyday he has to take time to talk to another therapist, and they ask hard questions like how he’s feeling and how things make him feel and if he’s ready to talk about what happened to him. He never is, but he tries, because he can’t be better if he doesn’t talk about it. 

Mostly he talks about how tired he is, and how food doesn’t taste like anything anymore, and how he doesn’t really feel much of anything about anything anymore. And the therapist nods and writes on their clipboard, and they talk about maybe getting him some pills that will make it a little easier to do things even without energy. And that sounds good to him, but his mother had to sign the permission slip for it.

She doesn’t.

And that’s fine, he thinks, because he figures she’d know if he really needed “antidepressants”. Even though his therapist clicks their tongue and glares at the note his mother sent to them, tucking it away and telling him it's fine, they’d find a more natural treatment for him since his mother doesn’t want him on any kind of pills.

So he wears his headphones a lot more, with more calming noises and music and stuff. And his therapist sprays these funny smelling things in the room that are supposed to make him feel calmer and such. He can tell they’d really rather be taking medicine, but Yusaku’s mother is against it for some reason that he doesn’t know and his therapist doesn’t mention but also doesn’t like. 

Eventually, though, his therapist sits him down and talks about something he hasn’t had the courage to bring up in a long, long, time. “We’ve been looking through your school records from before.”

Yusaku hums, staring at his dangling feet. He doesn’t really care about the before anymore, because he can’t ever go back there. His grandfather is gone, and he won’t ever see his old house again. He doesn’t even know what happened to all their things, but he knows if he goes back to look for the shop it probably won’t be there, because there’s no one to make glass anymore.

“Yusaku.” The therapist says, and it’s the first time he’s heard the name from someone else in so long it surprises him, and he flinches away without meaning to. “Your teacher found a copy of the note your grandfather wrote to the school. I’m not surprised we’ve missed this, with the lack of other records, but sweetie, why didn’t you tell anyone you’re a boy?”

His heart twists almost painfully, and his throat hurts, and all he can say is, “Please don’t tell my mom.”

His therapists face flickers with something Yusaku thinks is dislike, but then it becomes kind again, and their voice is gentle when they speak, “Nothing you say to me will ever be spoken of outside this room without your permission.”

It’s the most comforting words he could have heard, and the fear he felt at the idea of telling his mother he was a boy leaves him. He breaths, out of his mouth, the most comfortable he’s been in a long time, “Thank you.”

“Of course.” His therapist puts down their pen, folding their hands and leaning forward a little bit, “Would you be happier if I called you Yusaku in this room?”

“Yes.” He nods, fidgeting only a little bit in his seat, “But only in here. I don’t want to around the other kids. They’re no good at secrets and I don’t wanna tell my mom.”

Because he still doesn’t trust his mother, because something about her scares him in a way he hasn’t felt since he first woke up in the white room. Because she sometimes visits him with presents, like little dolls and dresses. Because she told him that the only good man in the whole wide world was his grandfather, and now that he was gone there weren’t any left. Because his mother is trying to be good, maybe, but more than that he thinks she’s keeping him around because he was born a girl, and because she wants that girl for something that he can’t understand because he’s too young and stupid.

He doesn’t wanna know what she’d do if he told her he is a boy. Maybe she’d be just as uncaring as she is with everything else. Or maybe she’d be angry. There’s no way to tell for sure, but he knows he’s too scared to risk it.

His therapist never tells, and Yusaku is grateful for that. They talk about it, sometimes, about how his body feels strange, like it doesn’t fit, or his skin is too tight. And his therapist says that when he’s older and doesn’t need his mother’s permission he can get special shots that will make his body more boyish, which sounds good. He wishes he was old enough for them now, but he’s going to have to wait.

His therapist also mentions that maybe, someday, he could live on his own and not see his mother if he doesn’t want to, and that sounds great.

* * *

Yusaku is eight when he realizes he’s never going to get better.

It’s been a long two years since the white room, The Lost Incident his teachers call it, and he’s been living in the wellness center ever since. But the nightmares haven’t stopped, and food still doesn’t taste better, and he still can’t be happy no matter what he does.

They also never found his friend.

He’s better at handling noises, and colors, but it’s still too much all the time. And even after two years of trying he still can’t handle a lot, or talk a lot, or be touched a lot. His skin is still tingly whenever someone tries to touch him, and everything is super sensitive. He gets sick easy, and he thought he’d be better by now.

But he’s not. 

All it took to destroy his life was six months. And two years later he still can’t move on. There’s no progress being made, and sometimes it’s like time stopped altogether when he left that room.

Sometimes all that keeps him going are his three things. Three reasons to live, three reasons to wake up in the morning, three reasons to go to therapy. He chants these things constantly in his mind, and they’re what gets him through his days.

He still doesn’t take medicines like the other kids, but he has a daily routine that his teachers and therapists helped him with for stability. It’s a schedule that they wrote and put on a special watch. Everyday he chants his reasons to wake up, gets ready with a show and brushes his teeth. Then he eats breakfast, goes to class, tries to get through the day, eats lunch, goes to therapy after classes, free time to do whatever he wants, dinner, then bed. His watch has little timers on it to remind him, but he turned it off a long time ago because it reminds him too much of the beeps the VR headset would make when he was about to be punished.

He’s stopped trying to spend time with the other kids, even though it makes his teachers worry. He’s spending a lot of time with computers instead, teaching himself how to use them. He takes apart old ones and puts them back together. And he goes online and finds websites that teach him how to put websites together and take them apart. And then he finds special app games that teach him how to write code, and how to break code, and he works through those and moves up to better things.

His teachers worry a lot about his lack of socializing, and even try to get him to talk to older kids. But he’s just too tired, and he can’t summon the energy to bother, so he usually just ends up ignoring them and fiddling with the computers. The older kids don’t really try with him, and the kids his age gave up a long time ago, seeing he’s not interested in talking, and that’s just fine with him, because a part of him still can’t find it in himself to try and make friends after what happened to his last one. 

And, maybe a little bit, he’s afraid that they’ll realize how weird he is and leave. Or maybe they won’t and they’ll disappear from his life like his grandfather and his friend and even his mom a little bit. 

“Fear of abandonment.” His therapist says, “You may simply be afraid of forming connections because of how suddenly you lost all of your positive relationships at once. Tell me, Yusaku, do you feel like your mother abandoned you when she had you live here instead of with her?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that question, he’s not even sure if his therapist is right, so he just shakes his head and says he doesn’t want to talk about it.

A week or two after that his teacher brings him a present. It’s a box as big as his chest, wrapped in a pretty sky blue, with a green bow. It’s a little heavy when he holds it, but not so heavy that he’s in danger of dropping it. He looks up to his teacher, whose hands are clasped together, and she looks so proud when she tells him to open the box.

So he does.

It’s a robot.

Not a fancy robot, he recognizes that much. It’s a MaidBot, not much better than roombas used to be. A little more lifelike, maybe. They’re designed to clean, and maybe make people feel a little more like there’s a person in the room with them. Though from what he’s seen online the AI isn’t so smart that they feel like real people. More like a pet, one that people feel irrationally attached to. 

Yusaku doesn’t think he’s ever had a pet, so he wouldn’t know what that feels like.

“It’s your new friend.” His teacher tells him, looking down at them proudly. “She’ll help you keep from being lonely!”

He doesn’t know how a little robot made to vacuum and keep dust out of his room will keep him from being lonely, but apparently it works for others, so he just nods. He doesn’t mention to his teacher that he doesn’t think he’s particularly lonely at all, that he just likes being by himself because it’s not so loud. She looks too proud for that, and he can’t take that from her. “Okay.”

“What are you going to name her?” The teacher asks, kneeling in front of him and touching the robot’s head. He hasn’t even turned the robot on yet, but already his teacher is personifying it. 

He hums, looking at the robot. He decides he can’t name it if he doesn’t turn it on and learns what kind of AI it runs on first. So he reaches his fingers over, feeling along the smooth metal and plastic until he finds the power switch, flicking it on.

The little robot comes to life with a small whirring noise and lit up eyes. Their eyes pop on with little heart emojis of all things, and a small “ahhh” leaves their speakers. Then, in a robotic voice that was probably designed to be cute, it says, “Good morning!”

It’s not morning.

“Good morning!” The teacher says to the robot, taking it out of the box and putting it on the floor. The robot looks around, this way and that, and it’s little eyes lock on Yusaku first and they turn up like it was trying to smile at him. “Hello master! May I know your name?”

“Yusaku.” He tells it, and his teacher hums in approval. The robot tilts its head like it’s thinking, but really it’s just memorizing his name. It pings after a bit, and it speaks again, “It’s nice to meet you master Yusaku! May this one please know it’s name?”

Oh, so naming it was one of the beginning features. So it really was like a little pet or something. A personalized setting to make this robot his. Well, now he has to actually think about a name. 

Three things to observe. One, it’s too cute to just call something plain like robot. Two, it is, in fact, still a robot and he’s not creative. Three, it’s designed with a bubbly personality that was probably meant to be upbeat and positive.

“Ro…” He pauses, thinking about it, but really just lamely finishing with whatever pops into mind. “...-boppy.”

“Roboppy!” The vacuum cheers, rolling around on it’s little wheels and throwing up it’s little arms. “Yay! I’m Roboppy!”

“Awwww.” His teacher claps her hands, “That’s too precious.”

* * *

Having Roboppy around is actually better for him than he thought.

His teacher must have special ordered Roboppy with custom programs for him, because she acts more like a caretaker than a maid. She charges herself every night, and wakes herself up with an alarm before getting him up out of bed too. She’s a lot friendlier than the alarm clock, gently encouraging him to get up and reminding him he has to brush his teeth and eat breakfast before class.

Roboppy spends the day cleaning while he’s away. He doesn’t think that his room has ever been so clean, and he wonders what she does once she runs out of dust to clean. Likely just keeps cleaning. Either way, his room is usually spotless when he comes back. Or as spotless as it can be. Even if he throws clothes on the floor before he leaves Roboppy will have them pulled into a laundry basket by the time he gets back. She probably doesn’t actually do the laundry herself by virtue of her physical and AI limitations.

But the important thing is that having Roboppy in his life leads to noticeable changes.

Every couple of hours she chimes in with a request for a hug, which is odd, but he indulges her. Because her metal and plastic doesn’t feel as odd as skin, so it tingles less to hold her. His hugs are awkward, and he knows it, but he guesses Roboppy is programmed to like them anyway, and gives a small cheer after every one. She makes the requests for them at least four times a day, and always asks him how his day went after. And she doesn’t pursue the questioning when he doesn’t indulge her. She just continues to clean.

Everyday around lunch and dinner she reminds him to eat. And she must have a copy of his schedule, because she reminds him of all his appointments. If he were taking pills she’d probably have a full schedule and list of what he’d be taking. 

It...bothers him a bit. Maybe. 

He just feels a little weird having someone worry about him so much, especially a robot. Someone could hack Roboppy and memorize his entire schedule, and all his appointments, and...and…

And they could do that to the school computers too. Or the wellness center computers. Really, if he thinks about it, all the notes on him are probably in a computer somewhere. All it would take was a really good hacker and everything about him would be in the whole wide world. And then he could be kidnapped again because kidnappers would know when he’s most alone.

The realization makes him sick, and he feels a new fear developing within him. A paranoia develops, and he suddenly doesn’t feel safe here anymore. He never thought about it before, because there were teachers and security everywhere, and because his mother is so terrifying that he feels like no one would dare cross her. But now he’s not so sure. He feels watched, like there’s someone trying to hack into the computers and take him again.

If he becomes a little more obsessive trying to learn coding so that this doesn’t happen, then he doesn’t think too much about it. Besides, Roboppy reminds him when it’s time to do other things, so it’s got to be okay.

* * *

Yusaku is twelve years old when he goes to live with his mother.

He doesn’t know what makes his mother decide to make him live with her in her giant studio apartment at the top of a skyscraper, but one day she shows up and tells him to back his bags. He does, quietly, and he wonders what his mother tells his teachers and therapists. 

He doesn’t have much to pack, just Roboppy and a few pieces of clothing, and his laptop. He doesn’t have any personal items outside of that, and he doesn’t really care. His mother judges him for it, he can tell by the destain on her face when she looks at his clothes.

“This is not acceptable.” She snaps her shades back over her eyes, “I’ll buy you more fashionable clothes later.”

Mother still doesn’t know he’s a boy, and he doesn’t feel very inclined to tell her any more than he did when he met her six years ago. He doesn’t know her much better either, other than becoming more familiar with how she’d react to certain things. It’s probably better to just let her buy whatever she considers fashionable and ride it out until he can leave for good.

There’s a lot of crop tops and short-shorts involved. There are bras, and dresses, and expensive looking jewelry, and it makes him feel so dysphoric that he could peel off his skin. Luckily there’s a selection of puffy shirts that cover more he can wear, and it seems like his mother remembered the fern-like scars that litter his body, so he has plenty of things that can casually hide his skin. And if he puts on a sports bra he can almost pretend his developing breasts don’t exist.

The apartment is more like a house than an actual apartment. It takes up a whole floor by itself, and the outer walls are mostly windows, with very modern furniture inside. For all his mother seems dismissive of him, she at least was aware enough not to make everything white. There’s color here and there, and his own room is painted a light blue color that vaguely reminds him of his grandfather. 

There’s a pool in an open outside area between their kitchens and rooms, and there’s trees and flowers around it. His mother tans there a lot, usually speaking business on her phone. Though, when she’s not on her phone, she asks him to join her out there and get some sun.

It’s weird.

His mother brought him a bikini top, and it’s weird to wear. He can’t bring himself not to wear shorts over the bottoms. Luckily, his mother doesn’t seem to care. She just lays there, soaking in the sun, and they’re usually both quiet when they lay there.

Sometimes, though, his mother talks.

“I’m doing all of this for both our own good.” She tells him, not bothering to ever look at him. “You may think I’m dismissive, but I promise, everything I do is to keep us on top.”

“Yes ma’am.” He nods, because he doesn’t really care. He knows he won’t find actual affection here, and he’s given up on that a long time ago. He doesn’t know if his mother has some maternal instinct that keeps him close, or if keeping him safe is a matter of personal pride, or if she just gets something out of keeping him close. But he never once thinks that she actually loves him.

“You’re safe here, and you’ll stay safe as long as you follow my rules.” She tells him, and even then she never actually looks at him. “I can protect you from anything, from any kidnappers, or scientists, so you have no reason to compromise me.”

She says it vaguely threatening, and vaguely like she’s selling something. Yusaku just nods, going along with her because what else is he going to do?

“Good.” She finally looks at him, “Then never, ever, leave this apartment.”

“Okay.”

* * *

His mother works for SOLtech.

She never tells him what she actually does in SOLtech, but she doesn’t have to, because he’s perfectly capable of figuring it out on his own. He’s spent the last few years of his life obsessively learning how to hide and find any information he needs. 

He doesn’t actually risk going deep into SOLtech, knowing that he isn’t really in a position to risk such a thing. But he digs just deep enough to know that he was right about his mother keeping him around because he might be useful more than anything. 

There was never any reason to doubt that his mother was high ranked in the company. All he has to do is look at his home to figure that out. But what she does, exactly, is a mystery. All he knows for sure is that he doesn’t trust it.

He knows that he’s in danger here if he digs, but he can’t help it. His mother is up to something, and he wants to know what. Because living with her is like living with a viper that’s always read to strike, and he feels the venom dripping onto his skin every time her eyes lock onto him. He tiptoes, and side steps, but he can never quite feel like he’s safe even when he locks himself in his own room with four walls between him and her.

It occurs to him that he could leave the issue alone, that he could probably be safer if he listens to his mother, that whatever she needs him for doesn’t have to hurt him in particular. He could try to make peace with his life, and be as close to happy as he can possibly get.

But he has three reasons why he couldn’t.

First, if he hasn’t recovered after six years in the wellness center then he’s probably never going to recover like this, and he needs to find something else. Second, there’s no guarantee that his mother won’t actually hurt him outside her word, or even hurt others. Both of these options are unacceptable at best. Third…

...he still doesn’t know what happened to his special person.

Something like anger pulses in him, and he realizes that if his mother wants to hurt people then he can’t let her. He doesn’t want what happened to him to ever happen again, and if it’s happening to his special person still then all the worse. So he grabs on to that pulse of anger and holds it tight, so tight that it burns every part of him. 

“Never again.” He whispers after one too many nightmares. Never again, not ever. No more nightmares, no more fear, no more secrets, or pain, or white rooms. He’s going to find who did this to him and stop them, and free his friend, and make sure this never happens again.

And if his mother is involved? So be it.

* * *

The task he’s given himself is dangerous, but the way he figures it, no one has loved him since he was a child, and he certainly doesn’t love himself, so there’s no reason he shouldn’t throw his all into it.

It takes a lot of sneaking, and a lot of hiding what he’s doing, but eventually, after a few years, he gathers enough information about why his mother is keeping him locked here to figure out what’s going on.

Whatever happened with the Lost Incident, it involved SOLtech. They’re the ones that covered it up, and they’re the reason that no one that wasn’t involved or that didn’t already know the kids disappeared have any clue about it. And even then information is limited, with most people not being aware that there was an incident despite knowing about the kidnappings.

And if SOLtech knew about what happened, then that means his mother, who was high ranked, knew what was happening to him and did nothing except cover it up.

That alone is enough reason that, at the age of fifteen, Yusaku escapes the apartment. 

It’s not easy, and it takes months to plan. Most of his appointments with therapists and most of his schooling are done at home. In fact, he really only has one shot to get this right. During the rare doctors appointments that his mother has no choice but to let him leave the house for.

So he shoves Roboppy and his laptop in a bag, and he hides that bag under a hoodie, and he waits.

He’s planned it for months, but it’s still risky. His mother lets him leave with no less than five bodyguards, and they circle him all the way to the car, then to the office. And he’s only free of them once the doctor calls him to the back hallway, where they’re not allowed to follow him and have to wait in the waiting room.

This is when he takes his chance. 

He plugs in a small gadget he made into a wall socket, and it makes the systems in the small office go down just enough for the doctor to be distracted for a few minutes. Then he gets up, walks out of the backdoor to the office, and he keeps walking until he’s lost in the crowd and down the street. Then he pulls up his hood and keeps walking until he swerves into a building far away, walks into the men’s restroom, and hides in a stall while he leaks off their wifi and hacks his way through erasing his trail.

He has to wait there for hours, and he’s well aware of the chaos he’s left behind. It takes mere hours for the news to hit that the daughter of “a high ranking member of SOLtech” has been kidnapped and is missing. 

The missing girl is named Bellefeuille Yuno, because of course it is.

Yusaku doesn’t leave the bathroom for a few hours after that, and takes the time to chop his hair so short that even with the unique color it would make people might not immediately think he’s the missing girl. Then he sets out the rest of his tentative plan.

Changing his identity is very illegal, and costs him what little money he had. And the men he works with are all learning and creepy. But Fujiki Yusaku is born with average grades, and a grandfather named Fujiki Ryou who died the year before. And he has special permission from the state to live on his own.

So he walks out with faked documentation, and hacked records, and short hair, and nowhere to go.

He doesn’t enroll in actual school and won’t for a while. For now he has to find a place to sleep, and a way to support himself. And if he sleeps on a bench or two for a few nights then that’s no one’s business but his own...and Roboppy, but she’s only somewhat aware that they’re not in a safe position, so he makes sure she’s mostly turned off.

It takes him a week or two of dodging search hunts and searching for a room, but he eventually finds a shit hole willing to take him in. The landlord isn’t very kind, but he’s willing to let Yusaku stay in a one room apartment that he can’t rent out to anyone else in exchange for work around the complex. Mostly cleaning and some improved wifi and security. Yusaku doesn’t even hesitate to accept.

So Yusaku sets up his life in a shit-hole one room apartment, with a bed the landlord found in the trash, and an old desk one of the other tenants was going to throw out. There’s no heater, and there’s no air cooler. There’s no television, and the likeness that Yusaku would get his apartment broken into by thugs was high. But, somehow, it was still league better than being trapped in an apartment with his mother.

It’s the safest he’s felt in years.

So he lets Roboppy out of his bag and switches her on, and he lets her cry in alarm at how filthy the place is and starts cleaning. And he sets himself up at the desk and begins working on trying to figure out what’s going on, and how to fix himself, and how to find his special person, and how to get revenge without alerting his mother to where he is.

He finds his answer in the Vrains.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I know what you're all thinking, and in my defense I wouldn't have done this if Vrains had bothered giving Yusaku at least one on screen parent. Or even a passing mention of a family. You know, like every other protagonist had. 
> 
> And, look, it's not my fault the wasted Queen. She was so cool, and threatening, and scummy. And it was cool to see a straight up female villain with no redemption arc that's also a main big bad in YGO. And it's also not my fault they didn't give her a confirmed age. And it's not my fault that she looked kind of like Yusaku to me. So none of this is my fault and you can't be mad at me. I take no responsibility. 
> 
> Not very many motherly moments with Queen because you think she actually lived in that apartment? Ha. No, she's terrible and Yusaku barely saw her. I doubt she even noticed he had a robot.
> 
> I also headcanoned Queen as half French, I don't know why, but here it is.
> 
> This story is just a collection of headcanons, okay? Don't take it super seriously.
> 
> On a more serious note, I really do wish they'd done more with Queen. And having her be Yusaku's mother gives her a little more gut punch in my mind, especially since Yusaku is otherwise so detached from her and feels nothing but contempt for her. I just feels like it adds a little more to the tragedy, which okay, Yusaku is tragic enough without it. But damn it, I'm adding it anyway. Especially jarring since she killed Earth, and Yusaku's got a bit of a canonical romance going on with Ai (as reported by TV Tropes so don't @ me).
> 
> Ageusia, the inability to taste, can be a sign of depression and is something I headcanoned Yusaku as having since he doesn't eat much. 
> 
> Also, I headcanon that Roboppy was probably supposed to be a mental health aid even before Ai got his hands on them. (Also I accidentally paralleled the trans headcanon by making the teacher refer to Roboppy as female when Roboppy will later identify as male once they can more sentience, which I like so I'm keeping it).
> 
> Trans Yusaku is just a personal headcanon. And in a series where Yubel exists, I don't think it's a stretch.


End file.
